Thankfully I have only one line that goes back to Germany maybe the handwriting won't drive me crazy when I start looking. The handwriting in English is bad enough sometimes especially when they write with a flourish with confusing lettering. I added the 'iffy' family connection for my maternal grandmother and have gotten absolutely no hints from any other family tree and only two hints from Ancestry.com but I already had both of those. I am guessing that is my family and no body else is looking.
Well, persistence pays off Toni. I was resigned to the fact I wouldn't be able to get any further back in my tree. Yesterday, while flipping through images of the parish registers, I found the death record for my 3rd great grandfather. This record included a place and date of birth, which I didn't have. After finding this, I was able to follow him to the 1819 census and see his parents and siblings!! JACKPOT! I now have this family line back to 1793, and I have been able to tie in some of my 'mystery' people.
EJ, I just got one family line back to Essex, England Ann Coggeshall born in 1626 in Castle Hedingham, Essex, England Her parents were John and Mary Hodge (Sturgie) Coggeshall of Halstead, Essex, England.
1626??? That is amazing Toni! I can only dream of getting that far back! I wonder if Castle Hedingham is still standing?
Wow, that's nothing. I just found her mother, Mary Hodge Sturgie, who was born in the same area in 1591.
That's amazing Toni! I just found this about Hedingham Castle http://www.hedinghamcastle.co.uk How cool to think your ancestors were born here!
Wow, thanks for that link Netty. I kept forgetting to look it up. I was heading back to Holland following another line of my family. None of those names mentioned show up in my searches so I figure my ancestor was one of the servants who lived there. That will take more searching. I have been trying to picture what life would have been like back then and keep picturing scenes from movies and you just never know how far from or close to the truth those are.
Any one ever deal with Footnote.com when getting copies of birth and death records? They have come up in a couple of my searches and just wondered if they were a good site before I give them any money to join. Randy and I have been planning on taking a road trip out to Monahans, Texas where one set of my great-grandparents lived and died. But I can't find any proof that they were buried there, trying to find a death certificate is where Footnote.com came up the first time. I would rather know they are actually buried there before making a 7 hour drive out there. Looking up newspaper archives isn't happening, nothing comes up for a newspaper even being published there.
I haven't done any geneaology for years. I came to a dead end when it came to country of origin for my primary ancestor (surname) It is known he arrived with wife and children on the North American continent ca. 1750. His will was probated in Montgomery Co. Md in 1761. Whether he was Scots, or Scots-Irish had been impossible to acertain. I may give it a go again sometime. I was able to trace branches of related families for hundreds of years, back to and in Germany, Ireland, England, etc. No fun, when it isn't your own family I guess.
FBG, have you tried Ancestry.com or any of the other online family finder type groups? I had absolutely no luck getting back very far either until I tried them. You can sign up for a 2 week free trial and by the end of the two weeks you are hooked from finding so much information.
No Miss Toni, I haven't. I might take it up again when I get some free time. T-storms are preventing any gardening right now. FBG
I havent been here in a while but was glad to see this thread going. Toni..I dont think your Coggeshall's were servants. Coggeshall is on peerage.com. If your Coggeshall's trace back to colonist in Rhode Island then you should google Sir John Coggeshall. There's also a Coggeshall, Essex, England. Sir John's descendants also trace to Halstead. I think you'll have a fun line to work.
I've been researching for about 10 years now. Just when I think I can't find anything new, someone shoots me an email with a story or photos. I've found relatives from coast to coast I didn't even know about. Regarding ancestry.com....I keep two trees there. One for research that is completely private, and one I allow to be public. The private one is for chasing leads....many of which need to be proven. There's a lot of misinformation on ancestry.com. My public tree contains only that which I have proof of the people existing, either from personal knowledge, or records such as census, birth or death, or marriage records. Footnote.com has some nice things, but nothing like ancestry.com. I actually get FREE access to footnote, newsbank, heritage quest, newspaper archive.com, and digital sanborn maps through my local library card. Whoohoo! If anyone want somebody researched through those entities, I'd me more than happy to do so on a rainy day when I can't be working outside. I have my family tree online off-site ancestry.com. http://donnelson.tribalpages.com/
